Why Pakistan needs superhero stories

Superheroes exist in Pakistan. They exist all around us. You could be one of them.

By
Anthony Permal

In August of 1995, on a hot summer morning at 3 am, a young man in a Karachi suburb opened his bedroom window and put one foot on the sill. He stood there, taking in the air, looking out over the city skyline and contemplated what was happening in his life.

He had two choices: jump and give into the primal need for release from what had been a very depressing, traumatic experience in his family, or step back and give life one more shot.

He chose life.

Soundsfamiliar? It should, because it comes from a seminal strip in 2006 where Grant Morrison wrote one of the definitive, if not greatest ever, ode to the human heroism of Superman of all time.

That young man chose not to lose hope. In All Star Superman, Morrison wrote a page that would go on to define what the core of a superhero was, what – if you stripped away all the superpowers, the fancy language, the engaging back story – was left that made them realheroes.

Priorto this panel, Superman is already dying. He has only a few days to live. And yet, here is a girl standing on a ledge ready to jump to her death. Her therapist didn’t show up, and all she wants, the only thing that matters to her, is to know someone, anyone, just one person, who cares.

At that moment, two dying people came together. I won’t take away from the moment, for my words won’t have the impact of Grant Morrison’s.

(The meme is a story shared by a young girl that went viral a few years ago under the title ‘Superman saved my life).

As you may have guessed, that young man I mentioned earlier, was me.

Why do we need stories of superheroes in countries like Pakistan? Why do we need a Batman story, or a Superman incident, or a Spider-Man saving the day as part of our growing years? Why expose our children to such mythology? For generations, given our culture’s disdain for art studies during the engineering and medical boom of the 80s and 90s, people who read or watched anything related to comics were looked down upon. It wasn’t the fear of being labelled ‘nerds’, it was the absolute certainty by elders that such stories belonged to toddlers, to time-wasters and that reading the works of literary giants such as Shakespeare, Doyle and Lewis were more important. Society in Pakistan was more interested in children learning about Doctorate degrees than Doctor Who.

And then the attacks on APS in Peshawar and on Easter Sunday in Lahore happened; just a few of the many gut-wrenching moments for our children. With humanity seemingly stripped away from these situations, insurmountable enemies surrounding us ready to strike, apathy and disdain from our authorized protectors serving to further alienate us from hope, where could we ask our children to find hope? Who would come to save us?

But then something else happened. Something that reaches into the depths of our shared consciousness that resonates collectively for the sliver of goodness that we know resides in our people. People ran from every corner of those cities to aid the survivors. I’m not referring to those who helped the older victims and injured, I’m referring to those who tried to divert the attention of the children from the blood, gore and despair surrounding them.

A powerful meme was shared after the Lahore blasts. It was a made-up conversation between two children who died in the blasts and were walking in heaven.

Child 1: “Why are you here?”

Child 2: “I don’t know, I was playing on the swings in the park and suddenly I was here after a big bang. Maybe I was annoying my parents. You?”

Child 1: “I think I was making too much noise. I miss my mom. I wish I could tell her I was sorry.”

Children don’t know why these things happen. And as with many children, when disaster strikes, they assume they did something wrong. No child should ever have to feel such guilt. That’s why, immediately upon hearing of the incident, volunteers young and old from across the city, state and country made their way to the hospitals to be there for them. They told stories, played skits, cracked jokes, brought films and cartoons, diverted their attention from their painful wounds to their joyful hearts, turned their frowns into smiles.

They did what Superman was doing for that young girl on the ledge: showing them it’s not over.

As Fred Rogers said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

In the Dark Knight Returns, Gotham had been drawn into a disastrous situation where good people people started infighting because they had lost hope. The sheer force of Batman’s presence – to use the immortal words of Mark Waid and Alex Ross from Kingdom Come – changed that. As he walked through the city on horseback, people stopped, realized they were inherently good, and decided to focus on rebuilding.

As I write this, a dedicated group of young volunteers – with no one asking them to do this, and it coming straight from their desire to help – are putting a carnival of superheroes together for the children in Jinnah Hospital. At the carnival, they are going as Spider-Man, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman with sacks of toys, gifts, superhero themed clothes and linens. Their aim: show those children that they too can be superheroes; they too can step back from the ledge; they should never lose hope.

You may think: any story can do this. Yes, most stories can.

But children need heroes. They will remember the Spider-Man who came to their hospital bed as they lay injured, and will remember when Superman said to them ‘Beta, ye loh, mai tumhare liye khilona laya houn Krypton se’ (son, here, I’ve got you a toy from Krypton). Years from now, a child whose only thought just before that moment was ‘I may never walk again’, will remember the moment that came next.

Six year old Awais was injured in the Lahore blasts. In Jinnah Hospital as he received treatment, after being visited by a volunteer in a Spider-Man costume, he said, "I'll become a big officer one day. I'll fight them. I'm not afraid of them. We have not lost. Long live Pakistan"

Children need heroes. We all do. We all want someone to save us. But mostly, in our lives as adults, we need heroes in the everyday things; when we lose our jobs, our parents, our relationships, our comfort zones; when things start crumbling all around us, we lose all hope.

That’s when we need these stories the most.

J. Michael Straczynski wrote a Superman story about exactly this many years ago, called ‘Grounded’. By no means is Grounded the best Superman story. In fact, it was mostly forgettable, save for one scene. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will warn you: keep tissues nearby, because not only will you find the story familiar, you’ll probably identify with the girl more than you know.

It goes deeper. I’ve lost close family and friends to cancer. Some younger than others. All with the same sense of loss. Yet, they all died in peace because they had someone with them when it mattered the most: as they were leaving.